Sempervivum spider

I discovered this spider, Pisaura mirabilis, on a houseleek rosette in our garden this morning.  She is carrying a globular egg sack beneath her front and seems well distguised.

Even more so from the side:

Assorted observations

Sempervivum calcareum ‘Limelight’.  This seems to be a very good doer and, so far, has grown very vigorously without any afflictions.                                                          

The rosette at the bottom of the picture on left shows the plant trying to escape from the confines of a rather overcrowded pot.  Did a root squeeze through one of the drainage holes and develop into a rosette to start a life on its own?The rosette at the bottom of the picture on right shows the plant trying to escape from the confines of a rather overcrowded pot.  Did a root squeeze through one of the drainage holes and develop into a rosette to start a life on its own?

This is the first seedling I ever selected now grown to quite a large size and with one rosette starting to run up into flower.  The brother and seedling sisters were a very varied bunch so, if I save seed from this one, I might get even more complex variations.

A problem with Anaemia

I have a very pale seedling which seemed to have been doing very well, but now is developing pale brown spots on its leaves and, I think, may not be long for this world (unless I can rescue some of the several offsets).

When I showed it to my granddaughter the other day, she said “it looks a bit anaemic” so, if it survives and thrives, I might try to name it Sempervivum ‘Anaemia’.

Sudden rosette death

Occasionally and apparently healthy rosette on one or another of my houseleeks will suddenly turn yellow or orange and die very quickly, over just a few days.  Rosettes nearby are unaffected.  The affliction does not spread from a given point: the whole rosette suddenly capitulates.

Below is an example on Sempervivum ‘Sir William Lawrence’ with one rosette affected

I would be grateful if anyone can tell me what this condition is, though I somehow doubt there is any way of stopping it and it only affects single rosette a few times each year..

Some of my seedlings

Over the last several years I have raised hundreds of seedlings from plants in my collection and am now able to select the betters ones that are not only interesting colours, but have good habits of growth and seem to do well in our rather damp climate.  I am, for the moment, giving them numbers (I am not sure how one goes about officially naming a new hybrid or checking that the name is not already in use elsewhere.

This one is 20140430 SV, SV standing for South View, the name of our house:

The rosette is quite large with an open, bowl shape like a water lily flower.  The next one is 20120616 SV has smaller, but very neat rosettes with a dark centre contrasting with the outside leaves:

Still more on lacrimae rerum

It rained last night and this morning many houseleek rosettes were sparkling with water drops.

This cultivar is called 'Virgil', the name of the Roman poet who wrote the phrase  sunt lacrimae rerum, 'there are tears in things'.

More on Moore

The other day I posted about Sempervivum 'Pastel' and its variants and added some information about its breeder, Nicholas Moore, who was also, in his day, a well-known poet and philosopher as well as a horticulturalist.  In addition to 'Pastel' he raised other good quality houseleek cultivars many of which are still on the market today.  Sometime I will try to compile a list.

After writing my earlier post I tried to find examples of Moore's poetry on the Internet and finished up buying a slim volume entitled Lacrimae Rerum containing his last poems.  On the cover there is a delightful illustration by Juliet Moore that includes a Sempervivum in flower.

For those unfamiliar with the title, it is taken from a famous line in Virgil's Aeneid written between 29 and 19 BC.  The whole line reads sunt lacrimae rerum: mentem mortalia tangunt and there have been many attempts to translate it or to find words in other languages to give the full sense of what the Latin means (though one translation could not possibly do this).  I always think of lacrimae rerum as signifying there are 'tears in things' (tears in the sense of drops that run down your cheeks), the knowledge that everything is temporary, doomed to fade to extinction.  However wonderful a plant or a person or a galaxy they are destined to pass away and this tempers the joy of now with a sadness, the metaphorical 'tears'.  This embodied sadness provokes the imagination to reflect that the present is moving inexorably towards some universal oblivion.  Or is it?  Sempervivum is Latin too and means 'always alive', a fact of which, no doubt, Nicholas Moore was well aware.

Sempervivum calcareum 'Limelight'

Named by Mary and Peter Mitchell, UK, in1980 this is described as a very vigorous clone of Sempervivum calcareum, from the French Alps.  The leaves have tips that are variably darkened, but this often disappears almost completely in summer (as in the photo below taken on 12 August).

Though they do not look much like the various forms of S. calcareum they have a similar solidity and general 'feel' of this species and provide a good, clear green to contrast with other rosette colours.

This example came from Rotherview Nursery, Westfield, East Sussex.

Nicholas Moore and 'Pastel'.

I seem to have a little more time and a little less energy, so I have been paying more attention to my semps than has been possible for a while.

One of the best things today is the flowers on Sempervivum 'Pastel' (sensu Ivyhouse Nursery) - but in this case my plants appear to be correctly named.

Those grown outside in full sun have very brown rosettes:

While those in the alpine house remain greenish:

This cultivar has also flowered for the first time here (after 3 years) with flowers that are much later than those of most of my collection.

Bred by Nicholas Moore (UK ) in the 1950s 'Pastel' is a hybrid between Sempervivum erythraeum from Rila and Sempervivum marmoreum ' Chocolate '.   It has an Award of Merit from the Royal Horticultural Society (1976).  Rila is a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria and its name is said to derive from the ancient Thracian language. S. marmoreum ‘Chocolate’ is described as a dark form of S. marmoreum brunneifolium.

In addition to plain vanilla ‘Pastel’, Sempervivum ‘Bronze Pastel’ and S. ‘Nouveau Pastel’ are listed in the literature, both introduced by Moore, the former in 1953, the latter in 1956. ‘Bronze Pastel’ is apparently of the same provenance as ‘Pastel’, while ‘Nouveau Pastel’, is said to be a cross between ‘Pastel’ and ‘Bronze Pastel’.  There is also a 'Brown Pastel', but that might just be a synonym for one of the others.

Nicholas Moore, from Kent, UK, hybridised sempervivums for many years and in the 1950s had articles in Amateur Gardening about his hobby (Mitchell, 1977). He is said to have introduced many “interesting and beautiful” varieties.

“Between 1930 and 1939 a number of expeditions to Europe,Turkey and the Caucasus were made in search of new plants. The result was the discovery of seventeen new Sempervivum species as well as varieties or geographical forms of species already known. Specialist alpine plant nurserymen received plants from these new discoveries, which were in turn passed to amateur growers. One such person was Nicholas Moore of St Mary Cray, Orpington, Kent. He used many of these new species and various selected forms for hybridising work, resulting in many new and quite outstanding plants to which he gave unusual cultivar names.” From Sempervivum cultivars in the Alpine Garden Society’s Plant Encyclopedia. http://encyclopaedia.alpinegardensociety.net/plants/Sempervivum/CULTIVARS

Moore himself was a fascinating character: a classics scholar and a much published poet as well as a horticulturalist.  He was also delightfully eccentric.There is an excellent account of Moore’s life and horticultural activities here: https://sites.google.com/site/4mysemp/sempervivum

And of his literary and philosophical career here: http://fortnightlyreview.co.uk/2012/01/pomenvylope-nicholas-moore/

REFERENCE

Mitchell, Mary (1977) Sempervivum ‘PASTEL’. The Sempervivum Society Journal. Vol 8 (1) 1977: 11-12

Sempervivum ossetiense in flower

A very late flower has appeared on this species which I have had in cultivation here since 1996.

This plant, properly Sempervivum altum var. ossetiense, was found in 1935 in   the central Caucasus along the old Ossetian Military Road by Walter Ingwersen where it grew on bare limestone escarpments with Gypsophila aretioides.

An attractive species, it has been called "la belle caucasienne."

As well as the general character of the plant, the interior of the flower has some fascinating shapes and colours.

Some Sempervivum flowers

Many of my plants are now flowering well, so here is a gallery of some of them.  The names are those under which they were originally aquired and sometimes do not fit the description of what they are supposed to be very well:

Sempervivum ballsii from Kambeecho, a place in north eastern Greece near Aetomilitsa, one of the highest villages in the country.

Sempervivum Green Ice.  This looks like a large form of S. arachnoideum.

Sempervivum kosaninii.  Named, I think, after the Serbian botanist Nedeljko Košanin (1874-1934).

Sempervivum 'Reinhard' (sometimes spelt 'Reinhardt').  Raised by Martin Fischer from Germany in1979.  One parent said to be S. cantabricum.

Sempervivum 'Tristesse'  A cultivar of S. calcareum raised by Gustaaf van der Steen in the Netherlands in 1984.

Sempervivum 'Noir'.  Parents: S. "marmoreum" collected on Monte Tirone x S. tectorum 'Nigrum'.  Monte Tirone is in Italy.  Raised by Nicholas Moore in Britain in 1950.

Last but not least, one of my unnamed cultivars has produced a magnificent fastigiate or cristate flowering stalk like the business end of a coral reef:

Some local hazards

Most of my houseleeks have now left their winter dormancy and are growing away well.  The weather however, has been very mixed with a long cold spell followed now by a heatwave.

Last week we had a brisk hail storm and most of the semps had small ice balls wedged between their leaves.  The picture below is of Sempervivum  dzhavachischvilii with a hail stone in the centre of its rosette (it put itself there - no manipulation from me).

Also of interest is another small toadstool that has grown up beside a rosette of Sempervivum 'Rubin'.  Downloading the photo enabled me to spot the houseleek seedling bottom centre of the picture.

Squirrel in the houseleeks

It has been cold so far this May, but yesterday the sun shone for a while and the grey squirrel that skitters round our garden took a sunbathing nap on a wooden shelf where I keep some of my houseleeks.  I see squirrels every day, but this is the first time I have seen one basking.

The Sempervivums behind are, from right to left, Black Mountain, Green Ice, Blood Tip and S. atlanticum.  The plant in the pot at the rear is a Deptford pink, Dianthus armeria, put on the shelf to stop the rabbits eating it.

Two seedlings

Last year I germinated dozens of seedling from a dark red rosetted Sempervivum.  Few of them look like the parent and I have started selecting the most promising.

The first one I potted up separately is quite large, with long narrow leaves and it is already producing offsets.  Because it is quite hairy raindrops collect on the leaves and stand out clearly against the greyish background of the leaves.  (The mother plant is in the top right of the picture).

My other houseleeks do not seem to do this, at least not in any obvious way.

My second selection is much smaller, but with similarly coloured leaves.  These, however, are distinctively fringed with long white hairs and the leaf edges seem to curl in somewhat, which enhances the hairy nature of the rosette.

Toadstools among the rosettes

Recently a few small toadstools made a brief appearance among the rosettes of one of my nameless houseleeks (but a very nice one).

So far as I can tell it is Psathyrella candolleana, or something close to it (though perhaps rather small) and the cottony bits on and around the edges of the cap seem characteristic.

The small toadstools developed quickly and vanished equally quickly and they were, I think, saprophytic on the decaying flower stalk and leaves that can be seen in the top centre of the photo above.

This fungus is known, among other things, as the fringed crumblecap, the pale brittlestem and the suburban psathyrella, the latter indication its frequent occurrence in gardens on dead wood and plant debris, a habitat consistent with the place where the toadstools were growing.

Blue Boy flowers

Sempervivum 'Blue Boy' has done very well here and produced a fine spike of flower. It is the last of the houseleeks to bloom this year - most have been over for several weeks. Blue Boy was raised by Kevin Vaughn in the USA in 1977.

White-flowered mystery

This very beautiful white flower has opened on one of my houseleeks.

The other picture shows the rosette. I have no idea what it is and would be grateful for any suggestions.

First houseleek flower of the year

The first houseleek flower of the year has opened today on an arachnoideum variety called 'Jubilee' which has made a large mound in a pot.

According to the Sempervivophilia web site there are two 'Jubilees'. Mine, from Belgium, would appear to be S. arachnoideum 'Stansfieldii' x S. montanum f. raised by A. Hansen in the UK in 1969.

Moth eggs

On a rising crosier of Sempervivum arachnoideum var. I noticed a batch of moth eggs. I know of very few things that eat houseleeks (apart from the n0n-British Apollo butterfly), so it will be interesting to see how they develop.

Larva on Pastel

This morning I spot a small caterpillar on a rosette of Sempervivum 'Pastel'. I think it had been blown of nearby bushes.

Anyway, it perambulated about and was clearly not interested in eating any houseleek. Eventually I rescued it and put it on some Japonica leaves, probably its original food plant.